Alright, so, I'm brand new here and joined the forum because I'm slinging some shiny synths with issues, haha.

First up, we have the Access Virus KB. The Virus has been a main synth in the band I recently joined (see username), but our particular Virus is...special. As in, it cuts out when we play one specific patch, but nothing else (usually). It's a rather obnoxious habit that has made the keyboard a bit unreliable. Fortunately, the patch is a basic pad, so we're not looking at something that can't be done elsewhere in that case (the problem patch is A67). Unfortunately, we have no understanding as to why that is happening or how to fix it. That's help request one, if someone can guide me as to anything we could troubleshoot there.

HOWEVER...

Every song we have is dependent on using the synths on which it was written...meaning that even though the patch giving us trouble on the Virus is expendable, other patches are not (the biggest concerns are C91, C77, and A20, though really only C91 is proving to be a big issue). We would rather not scrap the 6 songs from our set that rely on that keyboard, but since it's proving it can't be trusted in a live environment, we need to make a change.

That's where my Alesis A6 Andromeda comes into play.

Now, the Andromeda was something handed to me by a wonderful and generous person as a gift, as I had a serious case of lust for it. In all honesty, though, I feel I have barely scratched the surface of what the keyboard is capable of, and thus feel out of my league when it comes to knowing if we can make evil things happen here. I have done some editing and modifying of existing patches, but...

...what we want to do now is steal the patches we really need from the Virus (and probably a few we like), sample them, and put them on the Andromeda. I'm thinking that there must be a way to do this, but I have no idea what it is, as I'm not familiar with creating patches for this particular keyboard, and especially not when doing expansion memory is concerned.

I have patience and free time - what else do I need to do to sample the Virus, create a patch bank, and put it on the Andromeda (assuming it is possible, which I think it must be somehow), so that I can use Virus patches without using a Virus? Computer is available, as are some recording programs, and the willingness to throw a moderate amount of money at making this happen.

sampling is just makng a small audio file of a sound. what you're describing is actually replicating the patches you like on the virus on the andromeda, which is completely unrelated to sampling. the good news is that if you use the patience and free time you have to go through the knobs on the virus and pay write down their values (what numbers they are all set to), you should be able to just move the knobs of the andromeda to those values and you will have a *very wrough aproximation of that patch.

now the bad news: the virus and the andromeda are completely different synths. there's no way that they are going to sound identical, and it may be the case that the virus has components (effects, maybe an extra filter, etc.) that the andromeda doesn't have and vice versa. so you may not be able to transfer the exact values of all of the knobs. that being said, even if you were to do so, the two synths may sound completely different even with the same oscilator types going through the same filter settings and so forth. what good can come from trying to replicate the virus patch on the andromeda is that once you've matched the patch as close as possible with the andromeda, you can play arround with the knobs and see if you can either get it closer, or make something new out of it of the same basic sound. so you won't end up with the same pad, but you could still get a nice sounding pad that has the same feel in the song. honestly you would probably be better off starting with a similar andromeda preset and then tweaking that untill it sounds good, or figure out what's up with the virus. it only tweaks out on that one patch...? maybe it's just the patch. also, an a6 is a h**l of a gift!

btw, you could alwayse get a cheap rack sampler and sample the patch into that note for note.

If I'm reading this correctly, you're only having problems with one patch (A67)? If that's the case, then take a look at that patch!

As a long time user of Virus kb's, another problem you could be running into is the output jacks. On one of mine, they're a little dodgy, and if the synth moves just a little bit, the audio cuts out. I agree on with Stab Frenzy's suggestion on reinstalling the OS as a possible solution as well.

I play in a band with two keyboardists, and all of the patches were created on the Virus. After pulling my hair out trying to recreate the patches on other synths for the other synth guy, I ended up just buying another KB. I should mention that I wasn't using anything as nice as an Andromeda though! I also was dealing with a lot of patches. I got a couple of them sounding good after a lot of tinkering.